What Sugar to use?

Sugars are
used to sweeten dishes, preserve foods and balance out flavours, however in
terms of health benefits they can be very different. The average kiwi gets
around 29 teaspoons of sugar per day so being careful of how much total sugar
whether it be refined or natural is
important to monitor, even the amount of fruit or fruit based foods per day.

Tip: Best to
check the back of most food products nutritional panel and ingredients list to
check the sugar content from cereal to yoghurt, regardless if it’s a ‘health’
type product or a chocolate bar. Many of the bliss balls or health bars made
with a high dried fruit content can still have a concentrated amount of total
sugars. This can cause a surge in blood sugar levels and thus the hormone
insulin, which is a hormone responsible for taking the sugar out of the blood
and into the cells to be used as fuel. Unfortunately having too much sugar,
thus insulin and not enough physical activity means increased fat storage. Yes
you can put on weight by having excess carbohydrates even if calorie intake is
the same.

Avoid
refined sugars, so this is your brown sugar, white sugar, raw sugar, caster
sugar, icing sugar and most of the other sugars from the baking section. This
is called sucrose and once digested sucrose breaks down into fructose and
glucose. Glucose is well used in the body but fructose is a harder to break
down and normally gets stored in the liver which can increase risk of fatty
liver disease, along with breaks down collagen, puts pressure on immune system,
excessively raises blood sugars and is empty calories. Eating too much refined
sugars found in baked goods, ice creams, jams, cereals and pretty much most of
our food products. This sugar has no nutritional value in terms of vitamins and
minerals so I say ‘if it doesn’t have a benefit for the body, no point in
eating it’. There are better varieties to use in baking and foods to add
flavour and sweetness.

Coconut Sugar

Coconut
sugar does have a nice caramel taste but interms of calories and sugar levels
per 100g, is the same as standard sugar. The research showing it is Low GI had
flaws in it and is only based on one paper from The Phillipine Department of Agriculture and only had 10 people in it!

It does contain small amounts of potassium, zinc, calcium and
iron along with some short chain fatty acids and a fiber called inulin, which
may slow glucose absorption and explain its lower glycaemic value to other
sugars, however, eat in moderation as it isn’t any super food and you will find
more nutrients in a piece of fruit than coconut sugar. Think of it this way, white table sugar sits
100g of carbohydrates and sugars per 100g, coconut sugar ranks around 95
depending on batch.

Honey or agave or maple syrup

Our natural sugars on the positive side do contain better
nutritional values with vitamins and minerals and with their sweetness a little
goes a long way so generally you don’t need to add a lot to baking or dishes to
get a great flavour. On the sugar scale they still rank around 85-90g per 100g
so you do need to be careful especially with buying things like cereals or
yoghurts which will advertise ‘sweetened with honey’ but really have a lot of
other sugars hiding it in to not just honey. Or they will excessive amounts in
there too and all of these contain fructose (well honey has around 38% pure
fructose while maple syrup is sucrose but sucrose is made up of 50% fructose
and glucose. Again we want to limit how much fructose we have.

Rice syrupRice
syrup is great to use as a low sugar and zero fructose alternative to the other
syrups or table sugars. It isn’t as sweet which is nice too as doesn’t light up
the brain wanting you to go back for more and more (easier to stop at one
cookie!). Also known as rice malt syrup, brown rice
syrup is made with whole grain rice subjected to an enzymatic reaction. This process
breaks down the starches in the rice, and the simpler sugar (maltoseand maltotriose) is separated in liquid format. This liquid
is then boiled down into syrup. Per 100g it sits at 55g which is half of
most sugars! However it doesn’t contain any fiber or much nutrients so it isn’t
a super food but definitely one of my favourites for drizzling over Greek
yoghurt, marinades, sauces or some baking.

Dried fruitDried
fruit and fresh fruit is one of the best options to sweeten dishes or use for
baking, such as banana bread or adding raisins to cookies instead of chocolate
drops.The reason being is dried and fresh fruit can boost the fiber and potassium
levels along with adding good quantities of minerals and vitamins (real food),
much higher than maple syrup or coconut sugar. Also because of the fiber
content it has a lower glycaemic level meaning that it has a much slower
release of sugar into the blood stream. Avoid using dried fruit that may have
sugar on it such as mangoes, pineapple, cranberries, etc (check the ingredients
list!! Even on bulk bin). Prunes are lower in sugar than dates and raisins so
if you are wanting to use a lot of dried fruit for a recipe, perhaps swap to
prunes or go half and half. Remember the fruit sugar (fructose) is still
concentrated so again quantity is important. For example when making things
like bliss balls try use more nuts and seeds rather than making the bulk of the
ball from dates. Most pre made bliss balls list ‘dates’ as first ingredient
which means this is the bulk of the product. Try finding one or making your own
that has nuts & seeds as first ingredient. By combing dried fruit to nuts
does help lower G.I rate as nuts are slow digesting so when choosing a scroggin
mix, choose one with more nuts n seeds than dried fruit. Fresh fruit is
generally lower in sugar than dried fruit because of the water content fruit so
this would be my preference using things like apple or pear puree and I use a
mix of prunes, bananas and berries for my bliss balls. See the recipes on the
website. Even when choosing a cereal, choose one that doesn’t have much dried
fruit in it.

Stevia

Stevia is a plant based sweetener many times sweeter than
sugar but does come with a rather funny after taste hence you will normally
find a ‘Stevia based sweetener’ mixed with an alcohol- based sugar like
erythritol or xylitol. While stevia and alcohol based sweeteners don’t contain
any vitamins or minerals, they don’t contain any calories (well, extremely low)
and no carbohydrates so they can be beneficial for keeping the calorie and
sugar content extremely low in meals or baking, making it a good choice for weight
loss, diabetics or those on a lower carb diet. Having no insulin rise means less chance of
fat storage and is safer on your teeth (less tooth decay). There is still more
research that needs to be done about Stevia and it’s health effects An application to Food Standards Australia New Zealand
(FSANZ) is under consideration to permit the use of Steviol Glycoside (leaf
extract) as a food additive in New Zealand. – See more at http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/articles/2007/january/the-truth-about-artificial-sweeteners

And what about artificial sweeteners such aspartame (Equal) sucralose
(Splenda)? There is a lot of heated debate around these, again they are low calorie
sweetener but many people tend to feel better without using these varieties. Read
more here from the Healthy Food Guide and from the Consumer https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/artificial-sweeteners

So at the
end of day….you have your calorie natural sweeteners such as syrups (honey, maple,
agave, rice bran) to fruit and dried fruit, granules like coconut sugar and low
calorie and alternative sweeteners along with many other words for sugar such
as lactose, maltose, invert sugar, glucose, syrup, maltodextrin, barley malt
extract, which can be very confusing or misleading. Best thing to do is keep
away from refined sugars along with check the nutrition panel for added sugars.
Look at the ingredients list for total sugars per 100g and choose those
cereals, yoghurts, sauces, snack bars etc than come under 10g per 100g. If you
are baking, again avoid the table sugar and if quantity is important. If using
honey or dried fruit go sparingly, if using Natvia (stevia based sweetener) you
can add a lot more without the insulin rise or calories.